


Fellow Apprentice

by Kinni



Series: V3 Ultimate Shipping: All the Pairings! [7]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Age Progression, Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fellow Disciples, Kissing, Martial Arts, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16805941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinni/pseuds/Kinni
Summary: After being saved together with his sister by the master of Neo-Aikido, Rantaro decides to become his apprentice. Eventually that would lead to him coming into contact with his other personal disciple, a girl by the name of Tenko.





	Fellow Apprentice

Rantaro was eight years old when he met a true hero, so it wasn't really a surprise that he ended up deciding to follow him.

It all happened when one of Rantaro's younger sisters went missing while they were vacationing in Hungary. Her name was Natalia Amami (Natalia wasn't a japanese name, but her mother wasn't japanese, so...) and he had last seen her while their group was walking through a certain small neighborhood, so the small Rantaro Amami left the hotel to go there looking for her.

His father didn't know what he was doing, since Rantaro left the hotel very sneakily. He reached the neighborhood and started going around looking for his sister. He walked through the dark streets, without any idea of what kinds of things to look for, fearlessly asking anyone he could see whether they had seen his sister.

It was difficult to tell if Rantaro was lucky or unlucky, but he eventually managed to stumble right on top of someone who knew very well where Natalia was, because that person had actually been the one to kidnap her, being part of a slaver's ring.

Obviously, when Rantaro asked about his sister, the man freaked out and forced him into a car with darkened windows. And from there he was muffled and brought to a distant house, where Natalia was being kept prisoner, along with over two dozen other kids.

The group was big and organized, and since things seemed to be getting hot, they decided to move the kids somewhere else, in order to reduce the chance of discovery.

However, they ended up not having the opportunity to do so. The group started hearing screams coming from the outside, and when one of them tried to leave and see what was going on, one of their companions was thrown into the door from the outside, breaking it and knocking out the other guy as well.

The person who came inside after that was a man who looked to be on the first half of the twenties, and who was wearing something that looked like a cross of a long-sleeved robe and a military uniform.

The men inside the house shouted at the intruder, and one of them ran forward to tackle them while another one tried to pull out some sort of gun. However, neither of them would get what they wanted. With a smooth glide step, the man grabbed the closest one's arm and twisted, throwing him to the air with a fast spin.

Then he threw a bracelet he had apparently taken from the man who was still in the air, and threw the bracelet, making it wrap around the other man's fingers and making him lose his grip on his pistol.

From there, it was a whirlwind of motion, as the man took down every one of the five kidnappers inside the house, all the while making it look easy. They couldn't even touch him, and when one had the bright idea to try and take one of the children hostage, he found himself slamming against a wall as soon as he took a step towards them.

It was absolutely amazing, and Rantaro watched all of that happen with awe.

+0+

The things afterward were much less exciting. The man named himself as Hidari Amako, the founder of a new school of martial arts known as Neo-Aikido. He contacted the police to help bring the kidnapped children back to their homes.

Knowing that he would only get that chance, Rantaro begged Hidari to teach him Neo-Aikido as well. The man didn't really seem willing at first, but Rantaro managed to convince him to at least get a chance, receiving a harsh training regimen to get himself into shape, and if he managed to not give up on it, Hidari would consider teaching him.

The martial artist didn't really understand what he was messing with. During the following two months, Hidari received videos daily documenting Rantaro's incredibly thorough following of each and every single part of that training regimen. It was hours upon hours of footage, with a disturbing level of meticulousness in the arrangement.

After that, Hidari had no choice but to accept Rantaro as a new student of his martial arts style. Which prompted the boy to cheer immensely when he got the news. However, things didn't really change immediately, or at least not that much. Hidari still insisted that Rantaro should continue his physical conditioning, but once in a while, the teacher would visit his new student without any prior indication, and use those times to start teaching Rantaro the core techniques and knowledge of the style.

He had very strict guidelines for how Rantaro was supposed to behave, too, including forbidding him from fighting unless he had a truly significant reason to do so. As such, Rantaro's experience of childhood wasn't all that different from how it would be normally, as he slowly mastered the Neo-Aikido over the years.

However, once he was twelve years old, things changed, as Hidari told Rantaro that it was time to enter a special phase on his training.

+0+

“At this point, training you only once in a while is simply not enough anymore. It is time for me to settle down for a bit and supervise both my apprentices continually. In other words, it is time for you to become a live-in disciple!” Master Hidari seemed pretty excited as he spoke.

“Both your apprentices?” Rantaro focused on one part of his words “That means I'm finally going to meet my rumored fellow apprentice?”

He had heard from Hidari that the latter had another apprentice beside himself, but the master refused to give out any details, seeing it as a breach of the master-student protocol.

“That's right.” The master nodded “There were actually quite a few people who wanted to learn my Neo-Aikido, but most of them either couldn't keep up with the training, or were disqualified by me for one reason or another, often due to using the skills to harm or intimidate others.” Hidari's expression clouded as he said that, but then brightened up again “Only you two have stood by the principles of Neo-Aikido until now, and so I have become certain of it: You shall be the successors of my style, and will help take it to an even higher level.”

Rantaro's eyes widened as he heard that. It had been a lot of effort and struggle those past years, but now he felt as if it had all been worth it. He bowed deeply to his master and asked to go ask his father for permission to leave for training.

Rantaro first went to tell his sisters about it, to mixed, though mostly positive reactions. Natalia managed to sway everyone's opinions of it enough that even the most reluctant of them decided to give their blessing to his journey. Talking with his father about it was a much more relaxed matter, since he was a very hands off kind of parent. Soon enough, everything was properly setup, and Rantaro left to go to the airport on his own.

Still, he wondered why he had felt a sense of playfulness coming from his master when he said he was looking forward to meeting his fellow student.

+0+

The place Hidari had chosen for the location of his Dojo was a small city at the border of the Aichi ward. That would give them enough privacy to develop their skills in peace and without distractions.

The Dojo itself was a traditional-looking two stories tall wooden house with an iron gate. It really gave the impression that it was a serious martial arts school. Hidari was waiting in front of the gate when Rantaro arrived.

“Welcome!” He greeted his student “Your colleague is already inside, so why don't you go introduce yourself while I place the baggage in your room.”

With that said, he picked up all the baggage Rantaro had brought with one hand, opened the gate with the other and headed inside.

Shrugging, Rantaro headed inside as well, he walked through the corridors of the building, trying to find his fellow apprentice. He had just opened the door to one of the side rooms and was looking through it when a sudden shout reached him.

“Degenerate male!”

And then things started happening incredibly fast. Rantaro turned his head in the direction the sound came from, and was only just fast enough to catch a glimpse of something moving in his direction before his arm was grabbed and he felt floor and ceiling switch places as he was thrown at the wall.

However, Rantaro reacted quickly, bending his arms behind himself to catch the wall, then pushing himself off it and straight at the floor, at the same time swiping with his leg to try and trip the aggressor in a counter-attack.

The hit landed, but the opponent pushed off the wall with a hand to move upwards instead of falling down, kicking off the other wall to open up distance and landing on foot. The person then asked in a harsh tone:

“How do you know Neo-Aikido techniques?”

Rantaro finally had the opportunity to take a look at his opponent, and the first thought in his mind was 'pretty...'. She was a girl the same age as him, who had light green eyes and brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing the same kind of Hakama as that of Master, except that hers was blue.

“That would be because Master Hidari taught me, of course.” Rantaro said with a smile “I suppose you are his other apprentice, right? What's your name?”

“Hah!” She scoffed “Don't lie to me! There's no way a degenerate male could be accepted as an apprentice by Master. You must be some sort of enemy!” Saying that she raised her hands and prepared to resume their fight.

“Actually, he is indeed your fellow apprentice.” Hidari appeared from out of nowhere, speaking those words before they could come to blows again.

Tenko's reaction was explosive. Her entire body trembled and she leaned backwards as if pushed by a strong wind. Rantaro couldn't help but smile upon seeing it. Then she spoke with a betrayed tone of voice:

“But... But master... You said that I would become weaker if I stayed near boys...!” Her expression was pleading.

“Did I? You'll just have to compensate for it by training harder, then.” Hidari said. Rantaro could see a small mischievous smile on his face “However, I believe I taught you the proper protocol to introduce yourself to fellow martial artists?”

Tenko frowned in distaste, and Rantaro couldn't help but think 'cute...'. She turned to him sighed, and cupped her right fist on her left hand, bowing.

“I am called Tenko Chabashira.” She spoke.

Rantaro had received the same education, so he did the same gestures as her and said “I am called Rantaro Amami.”

This was the first meeting of the two, and it set the tone for their interactions for quite a while.

+0+

Tenko seemed to try and avoid Rantaro as much as she could, training in different places and at different times, but there was no way she could completely stay away from him, specially considering that master Hidari would often have the two of them sparring against each other.

The first few times that happened, Tenko got so worked up that he was able to defeat her easily, but then she apparently steeled herself and from them on their fights became a lot more even.

But Rantaro wasn't satisfied with interacting with Tenko just on those occasions, so he actually took the initiative to seek out Tenko with frequency, quickly becoming very good at finding out where she was at any given moment.

He would just exchange a few words with her and then leave the girl to her devices. It wasn't much interaction, but Rantaro was intrigued by her. He liked to watch her reactions whenever he appeared and spoke casually regardless of the situation (like when she was hidden inside a crawlspace). He wondered what made her tick, and little by little Tenko's wariness towards him diminished.

One day, he decided that perhaps she would be willing to answer a question he had, so he asked with the same casualness as anything else he ever said to her:

“How did you become Master's apprentice, Tenko?”

She looked at him and thought for a moment before answering:

“He saw me fighting some degenerate boys at the park and asked if I wanted to learn martial arts.” She said “Mom was very supportive, saying that it would help me learn to control myself better.”

Rantaro could imagine how disappointed her mother must have been when it didn’t work.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Tenko continued on:

“What about you?” She asked “How could you have gotten Master to train you, despite being a degenerate male?”

Her tone was accusatory, but Rantaro didn’t mind it too much, given that it was the first time she had actually shown any sort of interest on him.

“You see, while my family was traveling around, one of my sisters went missing.” He started. Tenko became very focused on what he was saying as soon as the word “sister” was mentioned.

“I went around looking for her, but it turned out she had been kidnapped by a shady group.” Rantaro continued “They got me too, so we were reunited, but I wasn’t able to rescue her.” He shook his head before smiling “But then, Master appeared. He defeated all the shady people and saved us along with the other kidnapped children.”

Tenko nodded, as if saying that was just natural. Rantaro then finished the story “I decided that I wanted to be strong like him, to be able to protect my sisters.”

He looked at Tenko, who seemed to have been shocked by his last words. She clearly struggled with it, but eventually managed to speak:

“It is… admirable that you wanted to protect your sisters.” She spoke with gritted teeth “I understand why Master accepted you now.”

He just smiled in response.

+0+

That incident marked a clear shift in Tenko’s attitude. It wasn’t a truly radical change, but it was there nevertheless. While before, Tenko had seemed to consider Rantaro’s very presence an eyesore, this time she actually looked at him as if he was a puzzle she couldn't figure out.

She still didn’t let him get very close, and her words to him were fairly harsh as a rule, but Tenko didn’t seem to mind his presence as much as before. Hidari noticed that as well, and seemed to be happy that the two were getting along better, for a certain value of getting along, at least.

That state of affairs actually dragged on for over a year and a half of their training. Rantaro tried multiple times to close the distance between him and Tenko a bit more, but eventually accepted that the next step would have to come from her, and so he didn’t push.

His patience was eventually rewarded when one day, Tenko had apparently had enough, and simply asked him a strange question while they were going through physical conditioning in the morning.

“What is the deal with you?”

Rantaro stopped his squats and replied “What do you mean?”

Tenko looked frustrated “I mean how are you real?” She asked “I know that you’re a degenerate male, but even after so long, I couldn't find anything bad about you!” She sighed “I just don’t understand…”

Rantaro didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that, so while he was trying to think of something, his mind ended up focusing on another matter entirely.

“You always talk of degenerate males, but...” He started “Master Hidari is a man as well, and I never see you treat him like that...”

Rantaro waited for her to respond, but when she didn’t do it, he looked at her again.

Tenko looked like her mind had been blown.

‘Has she seriously never considered that?’ He thought.

She started to mutter things in a low voice, Rantaro could catch repetitions of “but”, “master”, and several other disconnected words as the girl struggled to recover after having her entire worldview flipped on its head. Rantaro waited patiently for a few minutes.

“Right… I understand...” Tenko spoke slowly, in a somewhat desperate tone of voice “Even though Master is a male, he is a good person… That is the power of Neo-Aikido… Master never explained that to me because he was waiting for me to realize it for myself...”

Tenko’s eyes glazed over, as she repeated those same words back to herself over and over again. Rantaro watched over her, concerned.

Finally, Tenko seemed to snap out of it “Yes! Everything makes sense now. By spreading the discipline of Neo-Aikido throughout the whole world, there will no longer be any degenerate males, and thus the world will be saved.”

She then looked at Rantaro “And that’s why I never got weaker despite being near you. Because you are also mastering Neo-Aikido.”

Rantaro had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that, but thankfully enough he didn’t need to. Tenko suddenly seemed to have realized something “But that means...” She blinked and went crimson in the face to an amazing extent.

Then she took off running at such an extreme speed that Rantaro lost sight of her in seconds.

He wondered what that was all about.

+0+

Yet again, Tenko’s attitude shifted visibly. From then on, most of the reservations she had in regards to Rantaro seemed to mostly disappear. Things were somewhat awkward during the first few weeks, as they both had to adapt to the new situation, but soon they settled into a comfortable pace.

Rantaro was happy that he could finally call Tenko a friend. The two talked together, played together, and just enjoyed their time together in general. Master Hidari seemed to encourage their friendship, often giving them days off to “rest”, saying that strengthening the bonds between the apprentices was an important part of the development of the school.

Tenko also became friends with Rantaro’s younger sisters, mostly via video-calls, though some of them did come to visit. Meanwhile, Rantaro also got to know Tenko’s parents, who seemed happy that she had managed to make a friend.

Anyway, both of them slowly began to learn more about each other. They learned where their tastes matched and where they differed. Both of them liked to wear accessories, but Rantaro's tastes were more elegant while Tenko's were more childish. Both of them were interested in traveling the world, but Rantaro liked to learn about other cultures while Tenko simply wanted new experiences.

And so things went, as the two kept growing up together and developing their skill in Neo-Aikido, eventually reaching the point where they could help their master with refining and adapting the style (The trio also became masked vigilantes, but that's another story). However, their relationship didn't simply remain static, but it gradually changed over the course of the years, so subtly that Rantaro didn't even notice.

Until a certain day...

+0+

It was early evening, and the two were relaxing while watching television. Master Hidari had left earlier, saying that he had things to do and to not expect him back until the next day. They were both fourteen years old, and he trusted them to watch the Dojo.

He had talked privately with Tenko before leaving, but that wasn't really anything special for the two of them, as they were a lot more friendly with each other than one would expect from master and disciple, which Rantaro chalked up to them being kindred spirits.

However, Rantaro slowly realized that something was amiss. Tenko didn't seem to be paying much attention to the TV, and instead looked like she was trying to psych herself up for something.

That was rare, as Tenko was the type to act first and think later. Still, he tried to contain his curiosity so that she would have the chance to do what she wanted, however, after almost an hour of that, he eventually caved:

“Are there any problems, Tenko?” He asked.

She was so startled that she almost shrieked. Tenko looked at him with her face red and visibly swallowed, obviously nervous. However, soon enough her eyes set in determination and she opened her mouth to reply.

“I want you to kiss me!”

Rantaro blinked. That had been truly unexpected, so his response was perhaps not as eloquent as he would have liked.

“Huh?”

“I want you to kiss me.” She spoke again, this time enunciating clearly, then put her hands together and drew back, losing her facade of confidence “Unless you already have someone you like...?”

At that point, Rantaro had recovered from his surprise. And he knew that he had to give a response.

But instead of giving it with words, Rantaro grabbed Tenko's shoulders and pulled himself closer to her. He felt her hands wrap around his waist before they kissed.

The kiss lasted a long moment. When they separated, Tenko's face lit up in a smile, and Rantaro became certain that he had made the right decision.

He reached out with his left hand to grab hers and interlocked their fingers. The two spent a few seconds like that, just enjoying the mutual closeness, before Rantaro finally spoke up again.

“What brought this on?”

“I got tired of waiting.” She spoke, pouting “You wouldn't get the hint no matter what I did, so I asked Master for help.”

Rantaro suddenly thought of various events in the previous months that took on a new meaning now that he knew that she actually liked him.

“He said that I should just be direct.” Tenko continued on, oblivious “He said 'Being coy doesn't suit you. Just ask for a kiss and you'll know if he likes you.'” She smiled “Master really is wise.”

Rantaro decided there was something he had to do. He bowed his head and spoke “I'm sorry for making you wait so long. I promise that I'll make it up to you.”

Tenko seemed surprised for a moment, then smiled again and spoke “I love you, Rantaro.”

“And I love you, Tenko.” He replied, then continued, as he felt that wasn't enough “But I guess that was inevitable. After getting to know you, there was no way I would not fall in love.”

Tenko's reaction to those words was to pounce upon Rantaro, kissing him fiercely. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed back with just as much passion. One kiss melted into another as they expressed those feelings that had been suppressed for so long.

+0+

Meanwhile, in an Inn's room on the other side of the town, Hidari was talking to himself.

“I hope everything goes well.”

He was definitely not thinking about possible future successors to his style. No sire.

**Author's Note:**

> This took a lot longer than it should, since I had to head out on a sudden week-long trip where I couldn't write.
> 
> Still, I hope you like this. I know it's weird that Tenko's first appearance in this series is with a guy, but that's just the way the dice rolled. Don't worry, soon there will be some F/F involving her.


End file.
